So Mac this is the story;
 I started Mountain biking back in 2000 I purchased a KHS Hard tail with front “road shocks” Yes road shocks when I bought it I had no idea there were road shocks. I thought shocks were shocks back then. Well any way this bike turned me into a die hard Mountain biker. I loved this bike I could do everything on this bike, uphill technical down hill roaring technical and so on. My co-riders called me “Down hill disaster.” In a positive way!  

Well it finally came time to move on in 2004 to by my dream bike. At least I thought it was my dream bike. I bought a 2004 Stump jumper MSR Expert. In 04 this bike was the top design everyone wanted. I was told by the sales man that this would be a great transition from hard tail to Duel Suspension. So I threw $2,000 down and took it home. It has been 6yrs now with this bike and I have been fighting with it to fit me and to make me the rider I once use to be on the KHS Hard tail and you know what? It’s not happening. I changed the Stems from 110-90- 75-110mm- to handle bars from 25-24-26-28-length. To big tires to skinny tires back to 2.3 big. About four different saddles moving it back forward and so on. I changed shock psi with my weight over my weight under my weight and so on. Don’t get me wrong I have had some good days on this bike but just not riding to my potential.
 
I finally thought to my frustrated self and with fear of riding that I’m 37 and I just don’t have it any more. It’s not the bike it’s me. WRONG!!!
Last week I borrowed my good friends Custom made Single Speed 29er Hard Tail and MAN O’MAN!!  Down Hill Disaster was back! I felt no fear on this bike like I had been struggling with on the Duel for 6 yrs. I felt like water on ever thing up hill down hill all technical’s EVERTHING!
It is all about the bike. I wish I could get all my money back on the Stump jumper which is about $5,000 if not more that I put into that duly. That bike totally messed with my head. I could custom make my own 29er bike for about $1100.CHEAP!
I did take my Stump jumper 26er out with the the new mind set and nope I was back to loosing tons of energy and fear of falling. Just not like the rider I know I can be.  
 
So it is all about the bike it really is. It’s too bad I can’t afford a new bike I’m stuck with Mr. Fear.
 
Sincerely,
 
JJ Young

Today we split half in Fort collins the other half was in Denver. Green Mountain was the ride in Denver. The trails looked very cleaned up from the big winter. Along with some new connecting trails. The weather was sunny with a rain shower at times. Could’nt ask for a better ride to start the season off!

Ha! Just found this good old pic from one of the earliest MBM rides:

My new favorite trail. With two feet of snow in the Fort, we found a relatively dry ride for our ANNUAL BIG ASS RIDE. Last minute plans brought us to do the Heil to Hall connector. Awesome ride! Here are some of my pics (you can click through to see the rest on flickr):

Most chainrings are not perfectly round. Some are worse then others.

For singlespeeders this can sometimes make achieving correct chain tension a trick. To do this you approximate the tension, then rotate the crank to find the “tight” spot, then set tension from that position.

However, this assumes you didn’t forget to center the chainring in the first place! I learned the hard way and didn’t think about it when I originally threw on the chainring (sort of a SS noob). The variance was too much, either it was too loose and bounced off, or too tight and would bind some with each revolution.

I dropped a chain again recently… finally got off my butt and took the time to better center the chain ring on the crank spider/mounts. Maybe its just Salsa rings, but the fit is quite loose and it took some trial and error to get it fairly center.

Good to go now though:

Great ride fellas with lots of mud to boot.

Just found an awesome video detailing a rebuild of a FOX RP23… this is great:

In this case “rebuild” meaning replacing the air-sleeve seals and new lube.